Ivan Kal - Olympus

Another pause and Adrian asked. “Any thoughts on a name you would like?”

“I don’t have sufficient information to make an informed decision.” The Ai said.

“Hm… what do you mean?” Adrian asked.

“Names are a way of identifying oneself, some have meanings other than identification, and there are sentimental or hereditary names. I have no reference to choose a name. My database says that you are supposed to give me a name.”

Adrian frowned. “But you want to choose your own name?”

“Yes.”

Adrian scratched his head and then he had an idea. “Well, how about I give you my book collection, you can read it and maybe you will find a name that you like.” After a brief pause the Ai answered. “That is acceptable.”

Adrian entered the folder in his implants where he placed his books, he chose historical, mythology, fantasy, science fiction and biographies leaving the textbooks alone and sent them to the Ai. After he sent them he was again struck with a thought. “Wait how long will it take for you to read all them?”

“Three hundred forty seven point six three one seconds .”

“Um… Okay, but in the future you can just tell me approximate, unless I ask for exact time.” Adrian said, he looked at the time an realized that it was already past midnight, he didn’t yet receive any message from Laura Reis so he figured his schedule was unchanged, he was to come to work after breakfast like always. He usually spent the mornings working with the team, and the afternoons studying. “I guess I’ll go to sleep, can you still read if I am asleep?” Adrian asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you need anything else?” Adrian asked.

“No.”

Adrian shrugged and went to bed, he fell asleep almost the same moment his head touched the pillow.

Adrian woke up to an alarm going off, he reached out to his desk where his datapad usually was, to turn it off, when he found it he tried to shut the alarm off. When he realized that the noise wasn’t coming from the datapad, he frowned at it in confusion, it took him a moment to remember last night, and that he set his implants alarm to wake him up instead of the datapad. He shut off the alarm, and got up on his feet, he went to the bathroom, and then put his clothes on, he saw that the time was 07:17 he had just under 13 minutes until breakfast, he then started towards the door, when he suddenly heard a voice.

“Good morning Adrian.” Adrian was startled for a moment before remembering that he activated the Ai last night. The mechanical voice was the same as it was last night, totally impersonal.

“Oh, good morning… Uhm… Did you chose a name?” Adrian asked.

“Yes, I chose Iris.” The Ai said.

“Iris, like Iris from the Greek mythology, it’s a nice name – Wait, Iris is a girl’s name.” Adrian said.

“ Yes. Is there a problem with it being a female name? I am not aware of any restriction.” The Ai said.

“Uhm… No, no, no. It’s just that I figured you would chose a guy name. I mean, well, I just thought you would want to be referred to as a male.”

“I have no gender. Though I did read in many of the books you provided, of instances where humans attached gender to inanimate or genderless objects. If it will make you feel better, you may refer to me as a female.” The Ai said.

Adrian opened his mouth, and then closed it when nothing came out, his mind drew a blank. “But your voice doesn’t sound female.” He said stupidly.

“ I can change it if it bothers you, there are many available sound packs included inside my matrix. The voice I now use is generic. But I would like to make my own voice, if you allow me access to a few samples of female voices I can synthesize my own unique one.” The Ai, or rather Iris said.

“Uhm… well sure.” Adrian said, he accessed his music data from his datapad, since he forgot to transfer it last night, chose a few female singers and sent it to Iris, then he found a few interviews of his favorite actresses and sent those as well.

“Is that okay?” Adrian asked.

“Yes, thank you.” She said. Adrian could hear a slight difference in the way she talked compared to last night, she seemed more conscious of the conversation between them, her answers less mechanic.

“You speak differently than you did last night.” Adrian said.

“The books you provided had many examples of human to human interaction. I am incorporating that knowledge into my speech patterns. Do you wish for me to stop?” Iris asked.

“Not at all, this is a lot better, I’m sure that you will learn much more as you see me interact with other people.”

“I am still processing the information you provided. And I will only learn from your interactions if I am left in active mode.”

Adrian remembered that the Ai had a passive mode where they couldn’t monitor anything that happens outside of their own datacore. He thought about it and made a snap decision

“You don’t need to worry, I won’t put you in passive mode unless I really require privacy. You will learn faster if you are learning alongside me.” Adrian said.

“Thank you.” Iris said.

Adrian went to breakfast, and then to work, Iris remained silent for that time. His work was basically being Laura Reiss’s assistant, he followed her around the station, and sat in the meetings she and her team had to discuss the Fleet organization, the team basically reviewed proposals submitted by other teams and decided which were to be implemented, beside listening in and giving his opinion when Laura asked, Adrian didn’t have much to do, so he focused on learning as much as he could. And now that he had an implant he would be able to spend his free time in the simulators, which were a bigger versions of the game he played, Fleet Commander. The entirety of the game was in fact the same as it was in real life, it was a simulation, though none of the players really knew that. From the game he learned most everything he needed to know about commanding a ship and a fleet. The game was made in such a way that winning the scenarios awarded points which the player then spent on first improving his ship, and later buying new ships, until he had enough to create a fleet of ships. The scenarios varied from simple transport missions, escort, and pirate hunting, to major fleet actions against other fleets or stations. There were many customization options, players are able to buy different components and implement them on their ships, or design new ones from available technology. Laura told Adrian that every piece of technology in the game was in fact within their capability to manufacture, and that they incorporated many ideas that the players had implemented in the game to real life application. The simulator that Adrian would now use was far more advanced than his simple datapad game. The simulator interacted with the users implant in order to create a believable virtual reality, he would be able to walk through the ship inside the simulation, and command a ship from the bridge. There were also devices that enabled the users without implants to enter the simulation, but Adrian will not need to use them now. He was told that since there was never anything close to the kind of fleet they were trying to create, and as no one had any experience with commanding space ships, they would all be scored based on their achievements in the simulators, and after a certain period be given a rank in the new fleet and a position that best suited them based on the simulations. The simulations will include many different scenarios, some would put a person in command of a warship, other in command of a merchant vessel, some simulations would be entirely populated with computer generated people, other with other people who were running their own simulations, sometimes they would be put in teams where they would rotate on the ships posts and be scored on their performance on each. Adrian knew that the simulators would be coming online within next few days, and that the other recruits for the fleet would be arriving then as well, and also that he would be joining them. Laura told him that most of them will be at least five years older than him, and some more, they were recruiting from all graduates of Olympus, even from those that went to military school, and hoped to later go to the army. Adrian was a special case, being that he was raised by Olympus. He was the only one that was invited from the younger population of Olympus before he graduated from higher schooling, as the Fleet didn’t accept applications, the recruits were invited to join, hell, most people didn’t even know about the Fleet.